"The Golden West, as this amateur movie was titled by its maker. whose identifty is lost, tours America's Riviera," as the film rather grandiosely labels the Los Angeles region.... It focuses on public places and seldom the filmmaker's family members, who are onscreen largely to illustrate local customs...." (Scott Simmon) During a ride on a blimp, the filmmaker shoots aerial footage of Los Angeles and area, including some of the local film studios. Other sequences include a visit with B-movie actor George O'Brien, on set at RKO, and a Shriners Parade at the Los Angeles Memorial Colosseum, where floodlights illuminate floats representing various Hollywood studios.
The filmmaker is not credited. In archivist Lynne Kirste's commentary for the excerpt in Treasures 5, he is described as an unidentified amateur filmmaker from Pennsylvania.
"To impart life and interest to a film about growing alfalfa requires more than ordinary patience and perseverance. Mildred J. Caldwell has supplied these in her picture, Green Gold. Filmed throughout the year, it shows the plowing, seeding, mowing, bundling and threshing, to create a story with depth and perspective. There were times when the movie maker had to climb on stacks of baled alfalfa or ride on a lumbering machine while it performed some vital operation in the culture of alfalfa. Hemet Valley, in California, was the setting, providing pleasant scenic backgrounds for the different operations." Movie Makers, Dec. 1947, 537-538.
Footage of residential Los Angeles after a snowstorm in 1932. Opens with an Amateur Cinema League leader and a stop-motion animated title.
"An award-winning, detailed study of the life of this fascinating bird. Exciting sequences of their remarkable courage in defense of their young." Oldfilm.org
"Footage of the destruction in the Long Beach area after the Long Beach Earthquake, March 10, 1933. Also discusses two theories on what causes earthquakes." Archive.org
"Film's plot centers around the San Diego Moviemakers club and opens with a scene of the club watching a film program; A mysterious Man in Black disrupts things." UCLA Film & Television Archive.
"Footage of various California missions [...] from the late 1930s." Archive.org
"This all-too-brief film, discovered at a flea market, depicts patrons of a lesbian bar (probably in San Francisco circa 1950) and performances by drag king Jimmy Reynard and singer Jan Jensen, singing American standards, including “I’ll Remember April” and “Tenderly.” A deceptively simple document, it presents exceedingly rare images of queer life on its own turf, and on its own terms, before gay liberation." UCLA Film & Television Archive.
"Kenneth L. Lockwood is a newcomer to the tourney of Ten Best competition, but with Monterey Peninsula he seems to serve notice that his is a name with which to reckon. There is, throughout his immaculate 8mm. Kodachrome, a feeling of craftsmanship and care. Add to these fundamentals an unerring sense of composition and a nice eye for the importance of human interest — and you have an award winner in the making. Mr. Lockwood brings to the screen not only the windblown cedars and sun drenched missions, familiar symbols of the Monterey foreshore, but the life of its waterfront as well, redolent of fish, tarred nets and crabs steaming in a deep bellied kettle. One looks forward with interest to further work from this talented initiate." Movie Makers, Dec. 1942, 508.
"My Sierra Hideway: Leon Paddock, using a Bolex H-16 camera and a variety of four lenses, has produced a fine pictorial account of the beauties of the High Sierra mountains in California. The sound, on magnetic tape, enhances the film's presentation which gets off to a fine start with excellent titles." American Cinematographer, May. 1951, 192.
Total Pages: 7
Amateur Cinema